“I think I sprained my ankle.” The other boy held up his hand. “Give me a lift, will you?”
Jerry came up and the two of them dragged poor Quiz out of the hole.
“Now, how do you suppose that got here?” Sandy said.
Quiz shrugged. “Looks like a meteorite crater. Anyway, it really wasn’t such bad luck my falling into it. It’s the perfect place for us to wait out the fire.”
“How do you mean?” Jerry demanded.
“We build our fire line right around the circumference. Clear a strip about two feet wide out from the edge and start a backfire. It’s deep enough so that even if the whole hill goes up, we’ll be protected from the heat.”
“That’s a great idea, Quiz!” Sandy exclaimed, pounding him on the back. “You wait here while Jerry and I go down and bring up some of those shovels and stuff.”
Leaving Quiz to nurse his injured ankle, the other two boys hot-footed it down the slope to the mound of equipment the fire fighters had left behind. Sandy gathered up a shovel and two picks. “Grab a couple of those Pulaski hoes,” he told Jerry. Tears streamed out of his eyes from the smoke, and Jerry was seized with a coughing spell that almost choked him. The heat was unbearable as the fire closed in on the hill.
Staggering up the slope again with their load, they dumped the tools at the edge of the crater. For a few minutes, they were too breathless to work.
“I’ve never been so pooped in my life,” Jerry gasped. “Even after four quarters of football.”